How to Protect Your Business Against Ransomware

With a number of major organisations still affected by the Petya malware weeks after the infection began on the 27th of June, can your business cope with ongoing fallout from a similar infection?

It might be the big businesses which hit the headlines following the attack, but it’s been known for some years that small businesses are targeted more often than big businesses due to a lack of knowledge and the resources needed to protect themselves. It makes perfect sense after all - why would a criminal try to break into Fort Knox when it’s quicker and easier to break into a local retailer that’s far less protected? Sure - the rewards aren’t as great, but when it comes to effort vs. reward, a smaller unprotected business is a no brainer.

The good news is, reducing the likelihood of a hack or infection isn’t as difficult as you may think, or as costly.

Protect Your Business from Cyber-Attacks

While the world of cyber-attacks and online threats is complex and always changing, but here are five simple ways to protect your business before ransomware becomes a threat:

Conduct a Firewall Review – Using brute force attacks to spread ransomware is at an all-time high.

Employ Web Filtering – Well known websites have been found to unknowingly spread ransomware through malicious advertising

Keep Your AntivirusUpdated – A centrally managed antivirus solution is still a basic requirement of any business

Patching – Download the latest patches to address known vulnerabilities are released regularly

Shackletons Approach

We work hard with our clients to ensure that they benefit from their IT and it’s not a security headache waiting to happen. We do however speak with prospective clients daily who do not have the above protection in place, leaving them vulnerable to attack. Even with the above in place, there’s no guarantee that you’ll not become a victim, although the chances are a lot less. If the worst does happen then you’ll need to recover your data and systems from your backup... you do have good backups, don’t you???

If you have any questions about ransomware, or how you can protect your business from cyber threats online - get in touch with Shackleton today and we'd love to help you out!

A new strain of ransomware is wreaking havoc across the globe. Large multi-nationals, governments, banks, utilities and transport systems from Europe to the US have all been reported to have been affected by the latest ransomware strain so far, and we are sure more will follow.